Opinions, art, debate
People have started sending in book discussion requests through anonymous comments. One is for Ian McEwan’s latest book (thanks, I had no idea there was one because Amazon recommends everything except the writers you’ve been buying for years) and another is for Pedro Baños’ Geohispanidad.
There was also a recommendation in the comments for Flesh by David Szalay.
These are great suggestions and I’m glad that the 2026 reading list is already being built.
The new X algorithm is murdering me. It decided that I should only be shown tweets from Ukraine. I have no idea what’s happening in the US or Canada but I know every bit of gossip, online drama, and political goings on in Ukraine. This is torture.
I don’t know how to make it go back to the way it was.
Fox is so good, eh? I loved how she lets one assume that the father is a pedo and visits the pedo website and then puts one face to face with that false assumption at the end.
My records show that I read a novel by Oates before and retained absolutely no memory of it, which tells me that it was middling quality. I might try something else by her but that would have to wait until next year.
Congratulations, GOP. You really picked a winner on this one. Great move.
It’s actually worse when read silently than aloud because native is in scare quotes and that makes the whole thing sound even more clueless.
The novel Vera by Juan del Val is so bad that it left me physically unwell. I don’t say it because the novel is of a sensibility that is so lefty that it’s almost comical. My favorite Spanish writers are all gay communists and I think they are literary geniuses. Art, to me, stands so far above politics that I can’t begin to be bothered by artists’ political views. Juan del Val could have been a pro-Ukraine, deeply Orthodox, far-right dude, and I would have despised this novel just as much.
There’s no verbal or plot-related cliché in existence that Juan del Val failed to use in Vera. The characters read like parodies of very tired stereotypes hammered down with the earnestness of a psychotic woodpecker. The story is so predictable it gives one a toothache.
Vera is also standard leftist propaganda of the most primitive kind. It’s message is that women should be rich and get sexually liberated by buying sex services from men. But when men buy sex services from women, that’s bad. Women should be buying a lot of expensive crap to express themselves. Men should sit and wait to be bought by self-expressing women. Where should women get the money to make all these purchases? From rich men! Who are bad and evil because they make money instead of waiting to be bought by self-expressing women.
Now you understand why I feel nauseous. I urgently need to read something good to erase the aftertaste
When nation-states were being created, their stories of why they deserved to exist were based on achievement. “We are a real country because we did this important thing” would be the meaning behind the narrative of the national identity.
Spain, for example, defended Europe from a Muslim invasion and brought God to the Western hemisphere.
France also defended Europe from the Muslim invasion and created the Enlightenment.
Italy gave Renaissance to the world.
The US became the City upon a Hill, the exemplary beacon of freedom for the whole world.
Look at any nation, and you’ll see its origin story of achievement.
Things changed when the nation-state started withering away. The narratives of national identity changed and split into two groups:
If you want examples of (1), look at the entirety of Latin America. If you want (2), look at Canada, US, Great Britain. Both are ultimately the same thing because they are part of the same S&M dynamic which is, by its very nature, ego-oriented and completely barren.
Apply this method to any country you want and you’ll see where exactly it is on its nation-state journey.
“We have achieved this great thing” = strong nation-state. People want to identify themselves with this important achievement and love the nation-state.
“We are victims / victimizers” = the nation-state is going out of business. People are repulsed by the S&M dynamic and emotionally disengage from the nation-state.
What does all of this have to do with the novel Vera by the Spanish writer Juan del Val?
Absolutely nothing whatsoever. The novel is crap. Don’t read it. It’s about a rich woman who finds a male prostitute and becomes “sexually liberated”. I only read it because it received the most prestigious literary award in Spain this year, and it’s my job to follow this stuff.
Just so you all see what I’m going home to and understand the nature of my weather plight. The temperatures are in Celsius.
I’ve been enjoying it so much here in Canada where it’s snowing non-stop and everything looks like real winter. But I have to return to a place where the temperature jumps from summer to winter overnight and it’s very stupid.
Why was the turkey so bad? I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years of cooking. One side of it was cooked and the other was completely raw. How do you even achieve such a result?
No, it wasn’t a frozen turkey.
Yes, I used a thermometer.
This is a mystery that will haunt me forever.
Don’t forget what was done and who did it.
For Christmas Eve dinner, I made the worst turkey known to humanity and the glompiest mashed potatoes in existence. Which is why I won’t post the photos of this culinary horror of my own making and will instead share this image of a happy family enjoying a meal that did work out.
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